New court filings in Canada by the receiver and liquidators in the Banners Broker case now estimate the total haul of the alleged double-your-money pyramid scam at more than $156 million. That’s up from an earlier estimate by Toronto police of $93 million. If the $156 million figure proves correct, it would make Banners Broker a bigger fraud than the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.
Like MAPS, which currently is operating, ASD and Banners Broker purported to be “advertising” companies. The ASD case threw down the gauntlet on securities companies trying to evade the law by pretending to be “advertising” firms.
But the apparent upstaging of ASD by Banners Broker in dollar volume in the purported “advertising” trade is not the only news.
Rajiv Dixit, one of the Banners Broker figures who helped put Stepsys in the position of getting rich from online fraud schemes, was arrested in Canada in December 2015.
Filings April 4 by the receiver and liquidators in the case show that Dixit may be trying to use “sovereign citizen” courtroom tactics against them in Canadian proceedings. In the United States, AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming tried the same thing in that case.
The Banners Broker receiver and liquidators have reported Dixit’s alleged activities to the court.
Specifically, they say Dixit, who calls himself “the man master rajiv of the family dixit” [sic] and his targets “interlopers,” is trying to foist a bogus “Cease and Desist” order on them that threatens a fine of $36 per second if they don’t back off from their judicially mandated duties. Dixit apparently wants to be paid in “silver dollars.”
From the receiver/liquidators (italics added):
The Cease and Desist Notices go on to state that if the Court Officers and their counsel do not cease and desist “all actions and claims against Mr. Rajiv Dixit and or Rajiv Dixit forthwith” Dixit will invoice them $47,304,000.00 silver dollars “[p]lus, for each second starting at 12:00:01 AM until the cease and desist is complied with, each Respondent will be charged an additional $36.000 per second.”
Court filings in other cross-border cases — including Zeek Rewards and DFRF Enterprises — have signaled that “sovereigns” also were involved in those schemes.
With Banners Broker, Dixit called his affiliates “stupid,” according to the new filings by the receiver and liquidators.
Viewed as a PDF, this is a section from a court order signed by three federal judges appointed by the President of the United States. The order from April 1994 officially appointed Frank G. Johns clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
UPDATED 9:21 A.M. EDT JULY 2 U.S.A. As the PP Blog reported on June 25, at least one odd sideshow is occurring while court-appointed receiver Kenneth D. Bell is pursuing clawback actions against alleged “winners” in Zeek Rewards.
A filing docketed June 23 and attributed to Canadian alleged winner Catherine Parker led to questions about whether Parker, of Hamilton, Ontario, was a “sovereign citizen.” Parker is facing a default judgment of nearly $214,000. Among other things, the June 23 filing attributed to her accused longtime U.S. Court Clerk Frank G. Johns of the Western District of North Carolina of dishonoring his office.
Johns has held the office for more than two decades.
The filing identified Johns as a “respondent.” It also requested “a certified copy” of any oath taken by Johns and “certified copies and detailed lists of all [the clerk’s] court related bonds, sureties, indemnifications, and insurance related policies.”
Such tactics are consistent with filings by “sovereign citizens.” It is unclear whether Parker adheres to the bizarre “sovereign” ideology, some of which surfaced in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and ultimately led to criminal charges and convictions against ASD story figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming.
Leaming acted out on some of his legal fantasies, ultimately participating in the filing of bogus liens against U.S. judicial officials. “Sovereigns” sometimes don’t know when to stop, and escalations often land them in trouble.
Chief Deputy Clerk Terry T. Leitner of U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina responded to the June 23 filing attributed to Parker today.
This is from a letter from Leitner to Parker today (italics added):
In response to your request for a copy of the oath of office form for Frank G. Johns, Clerk, U.S. District Court, this office does not release copies of personnel documents.
This letter will confirm, however, that Frank G. Johns was appointed Clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on April 11, 1994. The oath of office taken by a Clerk may be found in the United States Code at 28 USC Section 951.
Attached is a copy of the Order appointing Mr. Johns which is public record.
Included with the Leitner letter was a copy of a 21-year-old court order from April 1994 that appointed Johns clerk of the district. Three judges signed the order, including then-U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen. The order was signed on April 5, 1994. It went into effect on April 11 of that year.
Mullen, who is hearing the Zeek clawback cases, went on to become Chief Judge of the district. A former Naval officer, Mullen is now a Senior District Judge. He also is presiding over the SEC’s Ponzi/pyramid action against Zeek brought in August 2012.
The June 23 letter attributed to Parker appears to contend she entered a defense to the clawback action in October 2014 but that the defense never was entered into the record of the case. Johns entered a clerk’s order of default judgment against Parker on Jan. 6, 2015. The letter requesting the clerk’s oath was filed more than six months later. It complained about Parker’s name being presented in all-caps and accused two attorneys working for the Zeek receivership of dishonoring the court.
The June 23 filing attributed to Parker marked at least the second time a resident of Canada has filed a document that raised questions about whether a person north of the U.S. border was playing potentially costly “sovereign” games in the Zeek clawback actions in the United States.
Bell alleged in September 2014 that Sandra Gavel of Sechelt, British Columbia, was a Zeek winner who owed the receivership estate nearly $90,000, plus interest. As was the case with Parker, Bell alleged that Gavel had received Ponzi proceeds that had come from Zeek victims.
Gavel wrote a letter to the North Carolina court in October 2014 that sought to make Johns or the court itself a “respondent” and asserted Johns had made an “offer to contract” with her, according to records.
“Your offer to contract is hereby rejected as unacceptable,” the letter read in part. It also solicited “evidence that the United States Constitution, North Carolina Constitution, United States Laws, United States statutes and United States codes apply to me.”
Like the June 23 letter attributed to Parker, the Gavel letter described Gavel as a “natural person.”
As is the case with Parker, it is unclear whether Gavel adheres to “sovereign” ideology. But Bell raised questions about Gavel’s curious letter in February 2015. From the receiver (italics added/spacing approximated):
However, Ms. Gavel failed to file a substantive answer to the Complaint. Rather, acting pro se, Ms. Gavel filed a letter that was received by the Court on October 24, 2014. (Doc. No. 32). In the letter, Ms. Gavel states:
Your offer to contract is hereby rejected as unacceptable. . . . I do NOT consent to the jurisdiction of any United States Magistrate, or the jurisdiction of any United States Article III Judge in the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA . . . .
(Id.). It is unclear whether, in light of the Defendant’s pro se status, the Court construes this letter as a Rule 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction or merely a failure to answer or defend.
Defendants, of course, are entitled to defend themselves in actions brought in U.S. courts. In general, pro se filers — people representing themselves — are held to lower pleading standards. Regardless, they are expected to follow the rules of the court. In U.S. courts, judges have the power to construe a pleading by a pro se filer because the plain meaning may not be clear.
When “sovereigns” are involved, however, it often is the case that the filers are being deliberately obtuse, sometimes as a means of harassment against judges, clerks and litigation opponents. One “sovereign” strategy present in the AdSurfDaily case has been described as “mailbox arbitration” — making an impossible demand of an opponent or perceived opponent, putting in on a tight deadline and declaring a “win” if the demand isn’t met.
The practice needlessly adds to litigation costs and wastes the time of the courts.
The June 23 letter attributed to Parker asserted that Johns had 30 days to produce his oath and other information.
Failure to do so “is your tacit admission to perpetrating fraud upon Catherine Parker in her natural capacity,” the letter read in part.
Johns is a lawfully appointed clerk whose appointment to office was witnessed and verified by three U.S. judges appointed by the President of the United States. Their order was signed on April 5, 1994 and, as noted above, became effective on April 11 of that year. It is captioned “ON THE MATTER OF THE APPOINTMENT OF FRANK G. JOHNS AS CLERK OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA.”
It has legal effect even though the name of Johns appears in all-uppercase lettering.
4TH UPDATE 2:47 P.M. EDT JUNE 27 U.S.A. An unsigned pro se pleading docketed June 23 and attributed to Zeek Rewards’ clawback defendant Catherine Parker is leading to questions about whether Parker is a Canadian “sovereign citizen” taunting a U.S. federal court in North Carolina and the receivership judicially empowered to gather hundreds of millions of dollars for Zeek victims.
The 2008 petition called for the U.S. Senate to investigate federal prosecutors and the Secret Service, claiming that “we as Americans have a right to advertise with any company without interferences [sic] by [sic] Attorney General and /or any of its agents.”
Prosecutors said ASD was a securities company offering unusually consistent, above-market returns while posing as an “advertising” firm. Zeek, which also had a purported “advertising” element while allegedly offering securities, offered unusually consistent returns even higher than ASD.
Parker resides in Hamilton, Ontario, according to the June 23 pleading attributed to her. That’s the same city and province that appeared under the name of Catherine Parker in the 2008 ASD petition, leading to questions about whether a Zeek beneficiary with “sovereign” ties also had profited from ASD’s outrageous scheme that also was advanced by “sovereigns.”
The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker was sent back to Parker’s Hamilton address for a signature, according to the clawback case docket. The case is styled “Bell v. Parker et al.” Kenneth D. Bell is the court-appointed Zeek receiver. In the early months after the SEC’s August 20012 Ponzi- and pyramid action against Zeek, Bell, a former federal prosecutor, was accused by an asserted Zeek member to have committed a felony.
Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen is presiding over the Zeek clawback actions. A longtime jurist and former Naval officer, Mullen is no stranger to poisonous filings that may be designed to embarrass or even ruin public officials by making scandalous claims against them.
In 2002, in a case unrelated to Zeek, Mullen became the alleged target of a smear campaign that used both the court docket and the Internet. Mullen then was the chief judge in North Carolina’s Western District.
In the 2002 case, the disciplinary committee of the North Carolina State Bar found that an attorney had used a website and created a “fictitious criminal record” for Mullen and had asserted that the judge had a felony record for horribly disgraceful crimes.
The attorney, who allegedly complained about “the record keeping practices of several federal, state and local entities,” including the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, the Administrative Office of the United States’ Courts, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff and the North Carolina State Bar, also allegedly tried to weaponize his own pleading accusing Mullen of felonies, according to the Bar filing.
“Now that these documents are a part of the record in this case, any person can come look at the court file, and copy only the pages that they want, and publish them in any newspaper or on any web site, with or without any explanatory comment, for any purpose they want to accomplish,” the attorney allegedly wrote. “No one is under any obligation to say that these are spoof pages and that the Chief District Judge did not do these things and was not ever arrested for these things. Isn’t freedom wonderful! And as long, as they only publish the pages, and don’t comment on whether they are true or not, they can’t be sued for libel, due to the absolute privilege that attaches to court filings.”
The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker appears to contend that Parker, who faces a Zeek-related default judgment of nearly $214,000, entered a defense to the clawback claims in October 2014 and that Parker has a postal receipt to prove it — but that a 46-page document she submitted in her defense was never entered into the record of the case. The pleading, however, does not detail the asserted October 2014 defense. Nor does it appear to include a copy in the form of an exhibit that presents the claimed defense.
Instead, the pleading purports to make a U.S. court clerk for the Western District of North Carolina the “respondent.” It also contends that the clerk and two attorneys working for the Zeek receivership under Bell have “dishonored the court.” At the same time, the pleading puts the court’s Charlotte Zip Code in a bracket — “[ 28202 ]” as opposed to a straightforward 28202, the standard convention.
A pleading that asserts “dishonor” claims against public officials and litigation opponents is consistent with tactics employed by “sovereigns” and their adherents. So is the use of a bracket to encase a Zip Code. (See the Blog of the Anti Defamation League, which has a March 15, 2013, story unrelated to Zeek that references a bracket and “sovereign” conspiracy theories about Zip Codes. The ADL story reports on a particularly tragic outcome for a purported “sovereign” the PP Blog also has written about.)
Whether the asserted October 2014 filing by Parker complied with the local rules of U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina — the venue from which Parker was sued for the return of her alleged Zeek winnings plus interest — is not known. What is known is that pleading standards exist in U.S. courts. Pro se filings also are one of the hallmarks of “sovereign citizens,” individuals who may express sentiment that laws do not apply to them or that courts do not have jurisdiction over them.
A court is not mandated to accept any and all pleadings. Some “sovereigns,” for instance, have been known to submit vexatious pleadings that seek to use the courts as an outlet for smear campaigns against judges, clerks, government officials and litigation opponents. “Sovereigns” also have been known to submit nonsensical claims or antigovernment or extremist political arguments, rather than cogent legal defenses.
Whether Parker is a “sovereign” is unclear. Some individuals have fallen under spells by “sovereigns” who sell pleading kits online or at speaking engagements. Now-jailed AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming was a purported “sovereign citizen.” Fellow ASD figure Curtis Richmond also was a purported “sovereign.”
Is A Canadian ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Taunting The U.S. Court And The Zeek Receivership?
On its first page, the June 23 pleading attributed to Parker includes what appears to be an ink stamp or seal of something called the “INTERNATIONAL FLAG OF PEACE.” Some “sovereigns” have shown a fascination with ink stamps, including ones in red that purportedly signify a bloody thumb print. (See this May 13, 2015, story in the Jackson Hole News & Guide that refers to purported “sovereigns” in Wyoming and the “International Flag of Peace.”)
Meanwhile, some “sovereigns” have expressed a fascination with capital letters, arguing in essence that if their names appear in caps, the reference is to a nonperson, a person who does not exist or to a person who exists in two forms. The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker asserts she is a “natural person.”
Another oddity with the June 23 pleading attributed to Parker is that it requests “a certified copy” of any oath taken by the court clerk and “certified copies and detailed lists of all [the clerk’s] court related bonds, sureties, indemnifications, and insurance related policies.”
This, too, is consistent with filings by “sovereign citizens.”
Although the June 23 pleading attributed to Parker is typewritten, the phrase “special, private, priority” is scrawled in longhand down the left-side margin of both pages. The reason why was not immediately clear. Some “sovereigns,” however, have expressed a belief that certain word combinations and certain types of punctuation have magical properties that can render courts and litigation opponents powerless, resulting in the dismissal of a case.
The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker ends with the words “Notice to Principal is notice to Agent and Notice to Agent is Notice to Principal.” Similar words have appeared in filings by “sovereign citizens” in U.S. courts.
“Sovereign citizens” in Canada sometimes have been called “Freemen on the land.” In certain instances, they have polluted Canada’s courtrooms with gobbledygook and have behaved in fashions similar to American “sovereigns” — claiming interests in properties they do not own and asserting their actions flow from common law or the Uniform Commercial Code.
Although many “sovereigns” clutter court dockets with mind-numbing nonsense, they do not act out in violent ways.
“Sovereigns,” however, have been linked to violence, including the murders of police officers.
Questions have been raised about whether a Canadian “sovereign citizen” murdered Edmonton Constable Daniel Woodall earlier this month.
UPDATED 9:37 P.M. EDT U.S.A. David Ian MacGregor Fraser, a New Zealand resident who allegedly used the Zeek Rewards’ username of “sovlife,” has challenged a U.S. Court’s jurisdiction over him in a clawback lawsuit filed in February by Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell.
Bell alleged that David Ian MacGregor Fraser received $89,722 from Zeek’s “unlawful combined Ponzi and pyramid scheme.” The receiver, who contends the U.S. Court has jurisdiction in international clawback actions in part because Zeek operated from North Carolina and sent money from the state to participants such as MacGregor Fraser, is seeking a judgment in that amount, plus interest. He alleges the money came from Zeek victims.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission described Zeek in 2012 as a massive, cross-border fraud scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars. In October 2014, alleged Zeek operator Paul R. Burks was charged criminally with wire- and mail-fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and tax-fraud conspiracy.
Earlier in 2014, Zeek figures Dawn Wright-Olivares and her stepson Daniel Olivares pleaded guilty to criminal charges filed in 2013 — Wright-Olivares to investment-fraud conspiracy and tax-fraud conspiracy and Olivares to investment-fraud conspiracy.
Web records suggest MacGregor Fraser used the shortened name of “David MacGregor” when pitching Zeek online through GetResponse.com, an email service sold in the United States and other countries.
A Zeek promo in which the username “sovlife” and the name “David MacGregor” appear begins in this fashion, according to Google search results. (Italics added):
Hi Friend
If you haven’t caught up with the latest news, or weren’t on the conference call the other day, then I just wanted to highlight the main points.
Screen shot of promo for Zeek. Red highlight by PP Blog.
MacGregor Fraser, who is represented in the clawback lawsuit by North Carolina attorney June K. Allison of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick in Charlotte, answered Bell’s complaint as “David Fraser.” The answer, however, acknowledges the longer version of the name as it appeared in Bell’s complaint. So does an affidavit submitted to the U.S. court by David Ian MacGregor Fraser.
The moniker “sovLife” appears repeatedly on the website theclassifiedsplus.com through which videos play. Some of these videos point to MLM “programs” such as the Empower Network in which “sovLife” is used as the affiliate ID.
Other videos at theclassifiedsplus point to a web entity known as sovereignlife.com. This domain is styled “SovereignLife” and identifies its operator as “David MacGregor.” There is a corresponding YouTube account in that name through which videos viewable through theclassifiedsplus.com play.
One of them with an upload date of July 3, 2013, is titled “My July 4 Message for the America That Was.” In the video, a man (presumptively “David MacGregor”) holds forth that he once was a big supporter of the United States. That support, however, apparently has evaporated in that the man contends in the video that the United States is “Dare I say it? A force for evil.”
Other videos in the David MacGregor account have titles such as “Bitcoin Debit Card – How to Get One,” “You Can Now Be a Reseller For SovereignLife And Keep All The Money!,” “Tax Slave or Sovereign Individual?”
Some individuals who may identify with the word “sovereign” have participated in various fraud schemes, have painted their fellow human beings as slaves (see Frederick Mann) or government-owned property (see Kenneth Wayne Leaming) and have expressed an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them.
Other “sovereigns” have made wild claims that they hold diplomatic immunity and thus cannot be prosecuted or are answerable only to Jesus Christ.
Zeek Clawback Defense
Compared to the “David MacGregor” video suggestion that America is evil, the David Fraser response to Bell’s clawback complaint before Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen of the Western District of North Carolina includes no inflammatory rhetoric or claims of evildoing by the United States.
Fraser, through the American law firm, is seeking dismissal of the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. He also is seeking to quash process in New Zealand, even though he acknowledges he has been served.
Among Fraser’s specific defense claims is that he was an “innocent participant” in Zeek, having joined the program in “November 2011” while he was a “resident of Malaysia” and maintaining “a Post Office Box in New Zealand.”
In possible conflict with the information shown in the screen shot above that references a sum ($5,000 in U.S. cash), the Super Bowl played in the United States and Super Bowl tickets that have “cash-out values for those not in the USA,” Fraser further contends he had “no specific knowledge that ZeekRewards was initiated from the United States.”
He also contends he was “unaware that ZeekRewards originated in North Carolina.” This, too, may be in possible conflict with information generally known about Zeek, in that Zeek openly operated from North Carolina and invited participants to events held in that state.
At one point in its history, Zeek openly advertised auctions for sums of U.S. cash — even as it preemptively denied it was operating a pyramid scheme and complained that the U.S. Social Security system was a “legal” and “collapsing” pyramid scheme.
Precisely why Zeek was making political statements on its website is unknown.
Accused Zeek Ponzi schemer Paul R. Burks lived in North Carolina. In 2012, Federal Election Commission records showed that Burks gave money to the campaign of U.S. Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul.
From a U.S. standpoint, Zeek used offshore payment processors such as SolidTrustPay and AlertPay, both of which provided services for the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.
Now-jailed AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme operator Andy Bowdoin also made donations to a political cause, according to the 2010 indictment against him.
In his defense filings, Frazer said he “made or received” Zeek payments through AlertPay over the Internet, but maintained he’d never set foot in North Carolina.
Now, he contends, he unfairly is being “haled” to appear in court in North Carolina.
“To ask him to defend this suit halfway around the world on account of falling into the [Zeek] Insider’s international Internet scheme would clearly offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,” his lawyer argued.
“Defendant Fraser never ordered or directed that anything of value be sent to him in either Malaysia or New Zealand from North Carolina,” his lawyer argued. “Rather, based on the way the website operated, amounts he earned on-line were credited to his on-line Payza account by ZeekRewards . . . Defendant Fraser did not know from what country or state the funds originated . . .”
In court filings, Fraser says he has been a citizen of New Zealand since 1978 and was born in Great Britain. He is a citizen there, too, according to his affidavit.
Are “sovereign citizens” immersed in the “SVM Global Initiative” and “UFunClub” cross-border, network-marketing schemes?
“Sovereign citizens” may have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. It is not unusual for them to be involved in financial fraud, and some “sovereigns” have been linked to MLM HYIP frauds and securities offering frauds.
Individuals who join such schemes may not understand they have signed on to enterprises engaging in international fraud and that a political agenda or even political extremism may be driving events.
In a conference call Tuesday night for SVM, a man who identified himself as “Nelson” calling from “Saskatchewan, Canada” came on the line. He explained that he’d been with SVM “from the very beginning” and was involved in “world-shaking affairs, including the global currency reset.”
Precisely what constituted the purported “reset” wasn’t explained, but the term has been associated with banking conspiracy theorists and “sovereign citizens.” AdSurfDaily Ponzi story figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, for instance, allegedly claimed “the Rothschilds” were hiding in a “bunker in India” while controlling the central bank of Iraq, according to a 2011 complaint against Leaming that accused him of filing bogus liens against public officials and other crimes.
The complaint was filed by a member of an FBI Terrorism Task Force operating in Washington state. Leaming, who’d been under federal surveillance, later was convicted on charges of filing false liens, harboring two federal fugitives wanted in a separate home-business caper in Arkansas and being a felon in possession of firearms.
Banking conditions in Iraq were causing the Rothschilds to lose money, and the “inner circle” is “jumping ship,” Leaming allegedly told a colleague, “just like body odor’s inner circle in the White House.”
“Body odor” was a veiled reference to President Obama. ASD was a “program” that claimed a daily payout rate of 1 percent. The $119 million scheme spread over the Internet, creating thousands of victims. ASD was broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.
A Troubling Narrative: Was A Rallying Cry Of ‘Sovereign Citizens’ Part Of It?
On the call hosted by SVM’s Sheila V. Tabarsi, “Nelson” further ventured that he had “many connections in the international banking arena.
“I have many connections in law; I have many connections in military — on and on and on,” he said.
During his fawning over SVM, “Nelson” went on to make a veiled reference to UFunClub, now the subject of a major investigation in Thailand. This leads to questions about whether he is involved in two separate cross-border schemes and whether other SVM members also are pushing multiple schemes.
“Nelson” said this before he got off the line (italics added):
“And God Bless the Republic of the United States of America.”
Here we’ll point you to BehindMLM.com’s April 13 review of SVM. We’ll note that the Tuesday SVM call more or less was an effort to slime the online publication, which reports on emerging MLM schemes.
SVM appears to operate out of Greater New York City, perhaps from the Bronx and Manhattan — with an arm in Costa Rica.
Prior to “Nelson” coming on the line, Tabarsi asserted BehindMLM.com was a “pawn” and a “coward” that works with an unidentified third party to “bring network-marketing companies down.”
“To me, this is real Illuminati kind of stuff,” Tabarsi said. “Granted, the success of Sheila V and Associates and the SVM Global Initiative could do some devastating things to the network-marketing industry.”
Other MLM schemes have trotted out the theme that dark forces — usually cast as competitors unhappy that downlines are leaving one “program” because another has found the Holy Grail — are controlling things behind the scenes or secretly. It is not unusual for political rhetoric, conspiracy theories or antigovernment sentiment to become part of the narrative, and this may be happening with SVM.
Tabarsi, for example, said during Tuesday’s call that the “Bush administration” was involved in an “effort to dismantle this world economy” and that the effort has been “so concentrated” and “so diligent.”
The aim, she contended, was to concentrate 99 percent of the world’s wealth in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
“We are a threat to that,” she said. “The success of Sheila V and Associates and the SVM Global Initiative is a threat to this establishment that is trying so long and so hard to take everybody down.”
Any number of MLM schemes have advanced forms of this narrative. The $1.8 billion TelexFree scheme broken up by the SEC last year was positioned as a “revolution” that would put wealth in the hands of ordinary people. Though much smaller in scale, the Achieve Community scheme broken up by the SEC earlier this year advanced a similar narrative.
TelexFree and Achieve — like the Zeek Rewards scheme in 2012 — were operating combined Ponzi- and pyramid schemes, the SEC has alleged.
SVM, through Tabarsi, has positioned itself a network-marketing enterprise with three arms. Working together, these three arms — Sheila V. and Associates LLC (New York), The Marketplace at SV&A LLC (Costa Rica) and SVM Redesign Your Life America with an organ called “The Freedom Fund” — purportedly will elevate people out of poverty.
On her website, Tabarsi says she is a “4th Generation Native Cherokee/African American Spiritual Life Coach, Universal Life Church Minister, Business and Medical Intuitive with 17 active years of practice performing Clair-empathic healings and various forms of intuitive readings.”
She also notes she is a “corporate administrative manager, former U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant and Veteran of the ’91 Gulf War” who established “SVM ReDesign Your Life America, a non-profit organization to convert abandoned military bases into places to end poverty and homelessness.”
In a March conference call, she claimed she was under investigation by a U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI, among others. She denies she has done anything wrong.
“The FBI is involved only because I have international clients, but not that there’s too much they can really act on,” she said during the call last month.
Because SVM says it has a presence in the Bronx and Manhattan, the PP Blog on Wednesday contacted the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York for comment on SVM, UFunClub and “Nelson’s” line about the “Republic of the United States of America” during the Tuesday SVM call.
“Serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has been the highest honor of my professional career. I am tremendously grateful to the President, Attorney General Holder, and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for placing their trust in me. The men and women of this office are among the most dedicated and talented public servants in the country. I am proud of the work we have done together to achieve justice in the courthouse and to build bonds of trust with the community that we serve. I leave this position confident that my extraordinary colleagues will continue to pursue justice and protect the residents of the District and this great nation.” — U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., District of Columbia, March 16, 2015
Ronald C. Machen Jr. is leaving his post as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after five years.
Ronald C. Machen Jr. led many important prosecutions during his five-year tenure as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The one PP Blog readers are most apt to remember is the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme figure Andy Bowdoin.
Machen, 45, is leaving his post and intends to reenter private practice, the Justice Department said today.
“During more than five years as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ron Machen has distinguished himself as a skilled leader, a devoted public servant, and a forceful champion of justice on behalf of the American people,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.
Upon the sentencing of Bowdoin in August 2012, Machen called the huckster “a master of fraud and deception” who cheated “victims out of their hard-earned money and savings with his get-rich scheme.”
AdSurfDaily gathered $119 million through its Internet-based fraud, a 1-percent-a-day “program” that purported to be in the “advertising” business, not the business of selling securities.
Machen will leave his post on April 1. Principal Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen Jr., 44, will become Acting U.S. Attorney on that date.
Two assistant U.S. Attorneys and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service involved in the ASD case were targeted with false liens by Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen” from Washington state. Leaming was arrested by an FBI Terrorism Task Force and was successfully prosecuted by the office of then-U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington.
We wish Ronald Machen the best, and we thank him for his service to his country.
UPDATED 12:27 A.M. EDT SEPT. 22 U.S.A. The PP Blog today contacted the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, owing to claims concerning the emerging BitClub Network “program” that is being pitched by certain members of the $850 million Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.
Known in shorthand as the Fed, the Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States.
Someone is posting on the RealScam.com antiscam forum as “Fedman” and purporting to be “Steve,” a “Vice President” of a federal reserve bank. Fedman purports to have been employed by the Fed “for over 30 years,” to “manage large operations” and to “work with monetary policy.”
Fedman appears to be defending pitches for BitClub Network by Brian Spatola, a New Jersey-based alleged “winner” in the massive Zeek scheme that may have affected hundreds of thousands of people. The court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case is suing more than 9,000 alleged Zeek winners in the United States and has said he’ll also sue international winners in the “program.”
The Fed did not immediately comment on the claims being made by Fedman.
It is sometimes the case in HYIP schemes that promoters and defenders of “programs” drop the names of individuals and entities that have no ties whatsoever to a “program” as a means of sanitizing scams. The name-dropping associated with BitClub Network has been furious and now appears even to include the name of the U.S. central bank.
After missing a series of advertised launch dates — including one on Sept. 1, the 75th anniversary of the beginning of World War II and another on Sept. 10, the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — BitClub Network now appears to have launched.
Promoters claim the scheme pays out between 0.3 and 0.8 percent a day for 1,000 days on invested sums of between $500 and $3,500. In addition, promoters claim there are recruitment commissions on top of the daily payout, a claim that accompanies many HYIP Ponzi- and pyramid swindles.
Among the BitClub Network promoters are Spatola and T. LeMont Silver, late of Zeek. Silver also promoted the OneX pyramid scheme, an exceptionally murky program that used an image of a bomb in its logo.
AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen,” was a Federal Reserve conspiracy theorist and an overall banking conspiracy theorist. Leaming was arrested by an FBI terrorism task force in 2011, after filing bogus liens against federal officials who had a role in the ASD Ponzi prosecution that began in 2008.
From ABC News report on James McBride and “Divine Province.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are referenced in the story about purported “sovereign citizen” James T. McBride below. ICE/HSI also are involved in the investigation of the alleged TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. Whether TelexFree had any “sovereign citizens” in its ranks is unclear. “Sovereign citizens,” however, have been linked to other HYIP schemes. Wild narratives may accompany such schemes both before and after a government intervention.
** __________________________________ **
James T. McBride first came to our attention in January 2013, after a reader alerted us to a story in the Sun Sentinel about a bizarre incident that occurred during a bankruptcy hearing for a Florida business known as RoboVault.
McBride, who claims to derive his authority from the Vatican, sent letters to the judge and trustee demanding the bankruptcy case be dropped. He previously has been profiled in media accounts as a “sovereign separatist,” someone who believes he is not subject to state and federal laws.
McBride’s name next surfaced in February 2013, as part of a story concerning the arrest near Columbus, Ohio, of a purported “sovereign citizen.” A police officer and police canine reportedly were injured. (See Comments thread below story, which references an entity known as “Divine Province.”)
So-called “sovereign citizens” — jailed AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming is one of them — have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. Leaming became the target of an FBI investigation after filing false liens against various public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Investigators found bogus police credentials in Leaming’s possession.
Prosecutors said Leaming was a member of the “County Rangers,” the armed-enforcement wing of a group of “sovereign citizens.”
By May 2014, prosecutors had formally connected McBride, 60, of Columbus, Ohio, to “Divine Province.” He has now been convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia on charges of conspiracy, causing the impersonation of a diplomat and producing false identification documents.
Yes. You read that right: causing the impersonation of a diplomat.
McBride was indicted on May 14, 2014, by a federal grand jury of one count of conspiracy, one count of causing the impersonation of a diplomat and four counts of producing false identification documents. According to the evidence at trial, McBride was the leader of a sovereign citizen group called “Divine Province,” whose members claimed the U.S. government was a “municipal corporation” that did not have authority over them. McBride produced and distributed false diplomatic identification cards to his group’s members, and he encouraged them to make claims of diplomatic immunity to avoid arrest, debts or taxes. None of the group’s members were in fact accredited diplomats.
McBride started selling the identification cards in September 2012 at a seminar he organized in Herndon, Virginia. Afterwards, he started selling the IDs from a website and shipping them around the country.
McBride sold the IDs in pairs, one that identified the holder as a “Universal Post Office Diplomat” and another that purported to be an “International Diplomatic Driver Permit,” for approximately $200. The defendant also encouraged his members to send copies of the IDs to governmental agencies to notify them of a member’s “status” as a diplomat. The defendant claimed that his authority to issue the IDs came from the Vatican. The defendant also gave a televised interview on ABC News prior to the filing of charges in the case, in which he reiterated such claims. During the course of the charged conduct, the defendant’s organization earned close to $500,000.
From a promo for Zeek online in 2012. The “program” operated through Rex Venture Group and later was charged by the SEC with selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Feb. 5, 2014, Zeek figures and alleged insiders Dawn Wright-Olivares and Daniel Olivares pleaded guilty to federal crimes. Wright-Olivares pleaded guilty to investment-fraud conspiracy and tax-fraud conspiracy. Olivares pleaded guilty to investment-fraud conspiracy. Federal prosecutors in the Western District of North Carolina are maintaining an information site here.
Kenneth D. Bell, the court-appointed receiver in the SEC civil case, also is the special master in the criminal prosecution. The charging document in the criminal case references unnamed “co-conspirators” who are “known and unknown” to federal prosecutors.
UPDATED 5:10 P.M. EDT U.S.A. In court filings apt to find favor in MLM HYIP Ponzi Land, some alleged “winners” in the Zeek Rewards “program” have tried to turn the tables on the court-appointed receiver by claiming he owes them “treble” damages for alleged violations of the North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Similar claims were made from the sidelines of the AdSurfDaily MLM Ponzi scheme in 2008. Some ASD members contended that then-Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices, apparently for having the temerity to bring a pyramid-scheme action against ASD.
Other ASD members contended at the time that federal prosecutors and a U.S. Secret Service agent should be investigated and charged with crimes for their roles in the ASD Ponzi prosecution.
Among the alleged winners in Zeek who’ve filed a counterclaim against receiver Kenneth D. Bell are Rhonda Gates of Nashville, an alleged winner of more than $1.425 million; Durant Brockett of Las Vegas, an alleged winner of more than $1.72 million; and Aaron and Shara Andrews of Lake Worth, Fla., alleged winners of more than $1 million through a Florida shell entity known as Innovation Marketing.
In addition to claiming Bell owes them damages for Deceptive Trade Practices, the counterclaimants assert Bell interfered in contracts with payment processors such as Payza and NXPay and violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Bell sued them in late February, alleging in a clawback action that their gains were illicit because Zeek was illicit. He also sued several other Zeek alleged winners, including former ASD members Todd Disner of Miami and Jerry Napier of Owosso, Mich. Disner allegedly received more than $1.875 million through Zeek; Napier allegedly received more than $1.745 million.
Disner, in 2011, sought unsuccessfully to sue the United States for alleged violations of his Fourth Amendment rights in its prosecution of the ASD Ponzi case. His co-plaintiff in the case was Dwight Owen Schweitzer, whom filings by Bell described as a Zeek winner of more than $1,000. Several alleged Zeek winners ventured into the “program” after earlier stints at ASD, including Terralynn Hoy, a Florida MLMer who moderated a forum that called purported “sovereign” being Curtis Richmond a “hero” for his efforts to derail the civil-forfeiture action against ASD-related assets.
Richmond, a Californian, was a member of a “sham” Utah “Indian” tribe that once sought to have U.S. Marshals serve bogus arrest warrants against federal judges. ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming later was arrested by an FBI Terrorism Task Force, after allegedly harboring federal fugitives from a separate home-business caper, being a felon in possession of firearms and filing false liens against a judge and prosecutors involved in the ASD case.
Other alleged Zeek winners sued by Bell in clawback litigation include Trudy Gilmond of St. Albans, Vt. (more than $1.75 million); Darren Miller of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (more than $1.635 million); Michael Van Leeuwen, also known as “Coach Van” of Fayetteville, N.C. (more than $1.4 million); David Sorrells of Scottsdale, Az. (more than $1 million); T. Le Mont Silver Sr. of Orlando, Fla. (more than $773,000 under at least two user names, and more than $943,000 through a Florida shell entity known as Global Internet Formula Inc. with one or more Zeek user names); Karen Silver, Silver’s wife (more than $600,000); David and Mary Kettner of Peoria, Az. (more than $930,000 via one or more user names and shell companies known as Desert Oasis International Marketing LLC and Kettner & Associates LLC); and Lori Jean Weber of Land O’Lakes, Fla. (more than $1.94 million through a shell company known as P.A.W.S. Capital Management LLC.)
Whether other alleged winners would join Gates, Brockett and Aaron and Shara Andrews in asserting claims for damages against Bell was not immediately clear.
What is clear is that a legal war has broken out over Zeek, with alleged winners challenging Bell’s clawback claims by asserting Zeek wasn’t selling unregistered securities as alleged in 2012 by the SEC, that they worked for the money they received or were due, that the alleged winners were not investors, that the SEC’s case against Zeek cannot withstand scrutiny under the “Howey Test” for what constitutes a security, that the SEC had a duty to catch Zeek much earlier — and, in any event and if all else fails, attorneys Bell sued last week and Bell himself are to blame for the unpleasantness.
From Brockett’s June 30 “affirmative defenses” to the receiver’s clawback claims (italics added):
The Receiver has filed suit against two attorneys who provided legal advice to [Zeek operator Rex Venture Group] and Affiliates, including Brockett. Brockett relied on that advice in concluding that RVG was a legitimate business and in committing over $100,000 in his personal resources to grow his now defunct business. Because Brockett’s damages were caused in part by the conduct of the two lawyers, Brockett is entitled in equity at and at law to a credit for all money the Receiver recovers from the two attorneys as a result of his claims against them.
Also from Brockett’s “affirmative defenses” (italics added):
On information and belief, the SEC knew or should have known of the RVG Ponzi scheme, but delayed unreasonably in its prosecution of claims against RVG. Alternatively, the SEC knew for some time that RVG was operating as a Ponzi scheme but intentionally delayed disclosing that information to Affiliates and to the public. That unreasonable delay has prejudiced Brockett because he has paid taxes on the money he earned working on behalf of RVG, contributed a significant portion of his earnings to his retirement plan, and has incurred business expenses as a part of his work on behalf of RVG. The Receiver in this action stands in the SEC’s shoes and also delayed to Brockett’s detriment and now seeks return of all monies Brockett earned in connection with RVG, with no credit for the taxes or business expenses that Brockett legitimately paid, but that could have been avoided had the SEC or the Receiver timely advised Brockett of RVG’s true nature or acted in a more expeditious manner.
And from Brockett’s counterclaims against the receiver (italics added/editing for space performed):
On information and belief, RVG was not involved in the sale or marketing of any securities, so the SEC was without jurisdiction and the Court did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the SEC Action. Consequently, the appointment of the Receiver was void and of no effect, and all of the Receiver’s actions in his capacity as receiver for RVG have been unlawful and without justification . . .
RVG’s and the Receiver’s conduct described above and in the Complaint constitutes unfair methods of competition, unfair trade practices, and deceptive trade practices in violation of the North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, N.C. GEN. STAT. § 75-1.1, et seq.
The conduct was illegal, offends public policy and is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, and deceptive.
Bell, the Zeek receiver, is a former federal prosecutor who once received a prestigious award from the U.S. Department of Justice for his work prosecuting a Hezbollah terrorist cell operating in North Carolina.
But some of the alleged Zeek winners now describe him with adjectives that could peel paint.
And as they do this, they seek to gut or circumvent the SEC’s authority to prosecute HYIP schemes while contending the agency fumbled the ball in investigating and prosecuting Zeek — that is, if anything was worth investigating and prosecuting at all.
It is a narrative apt to go over well in MLM HYIP Ponzi Land, the latest major expression of which is TelexFree, a rabbit hole case if ever there was one.
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, the AdSurfDaily Ponzi story figure and purported “sovereign citizen” now serving eight years in federal prison in part for filing bogus liens against public officials involved in the 2008 ASD case, once claimed the federal judge in Washington state who presided over his criminal trial owed him 208,000 ounces of “99.9% fine silver.”
Among Leaming’s bizarre claims was that the judge was “operating [a] SLAVERY SYSTEM, etc.” Leaming earlier tried unsuccessfully to sue President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Among his bizarre claims in that now-dismissed case was that he and a co-plaintiff — a man in prison on federal tax charges — were owed 12,000 ounces of gold.
After Leaming’s conviction in a 2013 trial in which federal prosecutors said he was channeling deceased cop-killer Christopher Dorner in the courtroom, the judge ordered the forfeiture of items seized from Leaming during an FBI probe of his activities in 2011. Those items included six firearms and police equipment, including badges, credentials, law-enforcement identification documents, light bars, crime-scene tape, handcuffs, vests and nightsticks.
Leaming “client” files also were ordered forfeited. (Some ASD members said Leaming was performing legal work for them, even though he is not an attorney.)
The Anti-Defamation League, which warned the public about Leaming before his name even surfaced in the context of ASD in 2010, now says a different group of purported “sovereign citizens” on the other side of the country is harassing a judge and court clerk in rural Greene County, N.Y. Greene County, in the Catskills, has a population of fewer than 50,000, according to its Wikipedia entry.
From the ADL (italics added):
. . . common law grand juries claim to have signed a “true bill” charging the chief clerk in Greene County with numerous “crimes” related to her alleged failure to file paperwork for the “grand jury,” according to ADL. They also “fined” a Greene County judge the amount of “100 ounces of silver,” citing 23 separate “violations” for failing to provide demanded documents and refusing to speak to their “board of review,” and allegedly sent harassing documents to a number of judges.
“[C]ommon law juries in Marion and St. Johns counties in Florida sent a ‘Writ of Mandamus’ to county officials demanding a budget of $1.5 million, office space and equipment and a meeting room with a conference table and chairs,” ADL reports.
Marion County is in North Central Florida in the Ocala region and has a population of about 335,000. St. John’s County is in Northeast Florida in the Jacksonville region and has a population of about 190,000.
There have been reports of violence and extremely menacing behavior involving “sovereign citizens” in Florida. In March 2013, purported “sovereign” Jeffrey Allen Wright was shot to death after pointing a pistol at a sheriff’s SWAT team in Navarre, situated in the Florida panhandle. Wright was wanted on a warrant for counterfeiting.
In November 2013, Tampa-region “sovereign citizen” Eric Holtgard was arrested twice in less than 24 hours, amid allegations he was menacing people with guns. In May 2013, purported “sovereign citizen” Bruce Chalmers Hicks of the Tampa region was arrested on charges that he was carrying a sidearm on the property of Turkey Creek Middle School in Plant City.
Larry M. Myers, a purported “sovereign citizen” and fugitive, was sentenced in 2012 to 78 months in federal prison. Authorities said he was was member of a bogus entity known as “The Constitutional Court of We The People In and For The United States of America” and the “Constitutional Common Law Court.”
“Myers and his co-conspirators mailed a CLC arrest warrant to a Chief Judge of a Florida State court,” the office of the Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration (TIGTA) said. “They also issued a CLC contempt of court order and ‘militia’ arrest warrant to a District Judge.”
“Sovereign citizens” have been claiming judicial and jury authority for years. ADL suggests these elements of the purported “movement” might be gaining steam.
“Adherents of the sovereign citizen movement are forming their own vigilante “grand juries” in counties across the United States in an attempt to exact pressure on local government officials to accede to their anti-government demands and whims,” ADL said yesterday.
“The sovereign citizen group behind this attempt to form bogus grand juries is the National Liberty Alliance, formed in 2011 as the New York Liberty Alliance by sovereign citizen guru John Darash of Poughkeepsie, NY,” ADL says. “It recently launched a nationwide effort to recruit new members, and Darash and his followers have spent most of their time establishing ‘common law grand juries’ in counties across the country. The Liberty Alliance boasts of having 852 county organizers in 36 states and nearly 2,000 members from coast to coast.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog is back — after its most recent brush with death led to a suspension of publishing that lasted through all or parts of six days. You’ll read more in the days ahead about certain changes the Blog plans to implement to safeguard its right to publish, to improve revenue, to make it less reliant on a small group of dedicated readers to put out fires and to keep its archives open to the people who can benefit most.
As for the editorial below: Some of it is based on “Government Exhibit G” and other government exhibits in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. Exhibit G was filed on Aug. 13, 2012, four days before the SEC went to federal court in Charlotte, N.C., and alleged that the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud that had victimized hundreds of thousands of participants. Among other things, Exhibit G addressed Bowdoin’s participation as a silent partner in the AdViewGlobal reload scam. Another court document filed by prosecutors on the same day addressed Bowdoin’s participation in OneX, which prosecutors described as yet-another MLM-style scam in which Bowdoin had participated after the U.S. Secret Service moved against ASD in August 2008 and eventually seized more than $80 million.
_______________________________________
The evidence sticker from “Government Exhibit G” in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. (Red bar added by PP Blog.)
Let’s talk about pollution and how it may be flowing to a bank near you:
AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin used a secret hushmail address in 2009 to discuss a bank wire for $38,750 that was to be sent to an account at Regions Bank in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to pay for servers and programming required by AdViewGlobal.
AVG, as it was known, was an ASD reload scam that began to unfold in October 2008, just two months after the U.S. Secret Service began the process of seizing more than $65.8 million from at least 10 Bank of America accounts linked to ASD, according to government records.
The Secret Service, according to court filings, also had its eyes on separate Bank of America accounts linked to an ASD-connected enterprise known as Golden Panda Ad Builder. Golden Panda was operated by Rev. Walter Clarence Busby Jr., a Bowdoin business partner and Georgia grifter implicated by the SEC 11 years earlier in three prime-bank swindles, including one that promised to pay interest of 10,000 percent. Some of the Golden Panda money also made its way into Bartow County Bank, a small Georgia bank that later failed, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. an estimated $70 million, according to government records.
From this fact set, one can plainly see that ASD and related scams had caused polluted money to flow to Bank of America and Bartow — and that the noxious and ever-evolving ASD enterprise now had its sights on causing polluted money to flow to Regions. That’s three banks put in harm’s way by what effectively was an evolving ASD criminal enterprise.
There were more.
At least $413,018 in ASD-infected funds also had made their way into accounts at First National Bank in Ames, Iowa. Another $96,525 in polluted proceeds flowed to two accounts at Wachovia Bank. (The U.S. state in which Wachovia was used to stockpile $96,525 in fraudulent proceeds directed at an ASD member is unclear. What is clear, according to federal court filings, is that the ASD member allegedly was using ASD to promote a “multi-level marketing site that listed classified job postings” and that 17 checks from ASD were deposited into the Wachovia account on a single, fateful day.)
That day was July 31, 2008.
History shows that the Secret Service moved against ASD the very next day, Aug. 1, 2008, as a means of stopping the ASD Ponzi monster from sucking in any more cash and from polluting any more banks. The ASD member with the Wachovia accounts had “sponsored 6-8 people to get into the ASD system,” and somehow had managed to receive nearly $100,000 in tainted proceeds after paying ASD only $500 and working as a “consultant” to ASD “for a brief period,” according to court records.
Because ASD used infected proceeds to pay members with accounts at banks across the U.S. spectrum of hundreds of institutions, each of those institutions became places at which wire-fraud proceeds were deposited. The total flow of fraudulent proceeds linked to Bowdoin and follow-up scams exceeded $120 million, according to federal court files.
But it gets worse . . .
At Least 2 Swiss Accounts Discussed In Exchanges Over Hushmail And Gmail
Why not infect Europe with American Ponzi proceeds?
This is the clincher, the one event that — in the context of other ASD-related events — shows the rampant criminality within the ASD enterprise and this particular wing of MLM. This criminality caused federal prosecutors to describe Bowdoin as a man who roped in at least 96,000 people in part by asserting that his “programs” reflected “God’s will.”
Bowdoin, prosecutors said, indeed was the personification of a con man and affinity fraudster who “boldly continued or expanded his criminal conduct” even after the Secret Service raid in August 2008.
Just two months later, in October 2008, Bowdoin and a former ASD insider held discussions aimed at launching AVG, the ASD reload scam that allegedly sucked in millions of dollars — in part by targeting ASD members all over again. The sources for this information are a government sentencing memo and “Government Exhibit F,” filed on Aug. 13, 2012, four days before the SEC’s Zeek action and confirmation by the Secret Service that it also was investigating Zeek.
Exhibit F is styled “Summary of AdView Global by T. Andy Bowdoin, Jr.” Precisely when and how the government obtained the document is unclear, but prosecutors say Bowdoin drafted it in “memo” form. Agents are known to have seized ASD-related computers. It also is believed that the government seized at least one AVG-related computer.
The undated document features a narrative in which Bowdoin, despite the Secret Service raid of ASD and ongoing civil and criminal investigations, suggests he was still sticking to a cover story that ASD was an “advertising” company, not an investment company offering securities that paid a preposterous interest rate of 1 percent a day while magically constituting neither a Ponzi scheme nor an investment firm. In fact, according to the document, AVG hoped to ward off the U.S. government by establishing some sort of presence in Uruguay.
Another part of the AVG launch plan was to attract “30 founders” in December 2008. In the Exhibit F document, Bowdoin also planted the seed that the nascent AVG MLM program had been vetted by “attorneys.”
These unidentified “attorneys” purportedly had advised Bowdoin that prosecutors would not be interested in establishing whether the AVG upstart “was OK,” even if Bowdoin submitted an AVG business plan, according to Exhibit F. Bowdoin then moved forward with AVG, despite all that had happened at ASD. Both before and after the ASD debacle, according to assertions by prosecutors, Bowdoin claimed he had acted “on the advice of counsel” and therefore had done nothing wrong.
“Bowdoin’s reliance on the ‘advice of counsel’ defense became a theme in both the civil and criminal litigation,” prosecutors advised a federal judge.
It was a defense that failed miserably, as various entries on the public record show. And when Bowdoin got in trouble again — this time for promoting an alleged pyramid scheme known as “OneX” while out on signature bond in the ASD criminal case even as he asserted the OneX “program” had been vetted by attorneys and passed muster and that recruits could earn to the limits of their imaginations — Bowdoin again defaulted to an advice-of-counsel defense.
This time, however, Bowdoin appears to have merely repeated false assertions that he’d heard from OneX or someone within OneX. The government responded by producing an affidavit from an attorney who’d performed work for OneX but never had drawn a conclusion the “program” was lawful and had never examined the actual business practices of OneX. The attorney swore in an affidavit filed under pain of perjury that the law firm through which he represented MLM clients “has never represented” Bowdoin. (The PP Blog is declining to identify the attorney, a partner in a Southern California law firm.)
Back to AVG, the scheme Bowdoin helped launch before later trying to sanitize the alleged OneX pyramid scheme by claiming it had been scrubbed clean by attorneys: Bowdoin was to own two-thirds of AVG; the former ASD insider would own the remaining third, according to Exhibit F.
Among other things, the document shows some of the fractured thinking and incongruities so often associated with HYIP scams. Despite the purported need for an offshore presence to ward off U.S. investigators, for instance, the document asserts that Gary D. Talbert, identified elsewhere as an ASD insider and one-time executive, had hired AVG “customer service people in the U.S.” (Bolding added by PP Blog.)
Web records show that AVG had come out of the gate with two impossible (if not insane) propositions: The first was that AVG was just like the NBC television network, an absurdity on its face in that NBC doesn’t pay its advertisers to watch ads. Moreover, NBC, unlike the collapsed AVG, doesn’t operate a closed network in which only NBC’s advertisers and not the public at large can view ads. Nor does NBC try to recruit advertisers by telling them they’ll receive a dividend of 125 percent (or more) on their ad spend within a few months and that its advertisers can earn downline commissions two levels deep by recruiting competitors to advertise on NBC’s closed network.
The second proposition was even more absurd: that AVG had nothing to do with ASD. The absurdity of this obvious lie was exposed before January 2009 even had ticked off the calendar. Indeed, after earlier asserting that AVG had no ties to ASD, the company — using a U.S.-based AVG customer-service rep who’d actually testified on ASD’s behalf in federal court — announced that ASD’s Talbert was its CEO. If this weren’t absurd enough, AVG insisted through the former ASD member now working as a AVG spokesman that the appearance of AVG graphics in an ASD-controlled webroom was an “operational coincidence.”
AVG went on to pile on the absurdities, according to court filings. In Exhibit F, the document prosecutors say was Bowdoin’s draft memo of his AVG reflections, members of Bowdoin’s family who allegedly benefited from ASD Ponzi proceeds are described as heroes who tried to save AVG from the thieves.
With ASD’s Bowdoin’s knowledge, Talbert, according to Exhibit F, also purchased an Arizona “company named TMS” that owned a payment processor named “eWallet.” (Other records strongly suggest that the payment processor actually was named “eWalletPlus” and was operating from servers AVG was using in Panama.)
“TMS used a bank in the Caribbean,” according to the document. The signatory on the Caribbean account somehow never was changed after the asserted change in ownership at TMS, and two former TMS associates allegedly stole nearly $2.7 million from AVG. The theft of nearly $3 million led to the collapse of AVG, according to the telling attributed to Bowdoin in the document.
To date, the PP Blog has been unable to ascertain the truthfulness of the assertions about the thefts allegedly committed by the alleged former TMS insiders.
What is clear, however, is that as much ASD money that could be found in August 2008 was seized. AVG then launched with cash that hadn’t been seized, and in part was targeted at ASD members. AVG members then were left holding the bag, with the blame placed on former TMS associates.
And something else is clear, which brings us to “Government Exhibit G”: AVG, the follow-up scam to ASD that involved Bowdoin and ASD insiders and alleged thefts of millions of dollars by outsiders, had at least two Swiss bank accounts.
One of AVG’s Swiss bank accounts allegedly was discussed in this email between Andy Bowdoin and Gary Talbert. Bowdoin was ASD’s operator; Talbert was an ASD insider who allegedly became Bowdoin’s business partner in the AVG Ponzi scheme that sucked away millions of dollars. (Red lines inserted by PP Blog.)
On Jan. 28, 2009, just days before AVG’s scheduled launch date in early February and less than six months after the Secret Service raid on ASD’s headquarters and Bowdoin’s home in Quincy, Fla., Gary Talbert used a Gmail address to email Andy Bowdoin at a hushmail address, according to Exhibit G.
Talbert advised Bowdoin that an individual — presumptively one of the 30 AVG founders — had conducted a “Wire Transfer to AVG Swiss Bank Account” and needed assurances that it had posted. The inquiry about the asserted wire transfer appears to have been initiated by another AVG insider who’d emailed Talbert from his Gmail address to Talbert’s Gmail address. Through Gmail, Talbert then checked with Bowdoin at Bowdoin’s hushmail address, instructing the ASD patriarch that someone wanted to “verify that a bank wire hit the Swiss bank account.”
Upon verification, the customer would make “another large wire,” Exhibit G suggests.
Another email within the January 2009 chain says that AVG had at least two Swiss accounts.
What It Means
Walking this back and assuming the Exhibit G communications were truthful, what it means is that the ASD enterprise — this time in the form of AVG — had set up a banking operation in Switzerland, a secrecy haven. At the same time, it means that the ASD enterprise did this after it earlier had polluted U.S. banks in multiple states with fraudulent proceeds and now was taking its act not only to Switzerland, but also to South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Less clear is whether ASD had a preexisting banking network in Switzerland before effectively morphing into AVG. Regardless of when the Swiss accounts were opened, however, the mere presence of them suggests that ASD and AVG insiders had the means to move fraudulent proceeds from U.S.-based crimes offshore and perhaps tap into them later.
And this brings us to Zeek Rewards, which also used domestic and offshore facilitators and the same fundamental business model of ASD and AVG. It also brings us to Profitable Sunrise and other MLM “programs” such as Better-Living Global Marketing. The now-disappeared Profitable Sunrise scheme allegedly used U.S. bank wires and offshore facilitators to drive tens of millions of dollars to the scheme. BLGM, still active, clearly has U.S. promoters and facilitators while purportedly operating from Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, BLGM, like ASD, AVG, Profitable Sunrise and Zeek Rewards, has Stepfordian “defenders” running interference online.
One of those “defenders” is over at the BehindMLM.com antiscam Blog asserting that he “met a guy online. I know him well now. I deposited $6500 into his Bank Of America account at my local branch.”
Another BLGM defender is at BehindMLM.com asserting that (italics added):
Got my Hongkong wire/remittance of 6,000 USD at Bank of America, have all my questions and concerns answered by Luke Teng, the teleconference helped a lot, disregard all the unnecessary comments of non-members.
Get all your transparent answers from Luke Teng, or else you will die of stress reading all the negative comments of people who are not engaging, and guys remember this is our freewill and our own money, our decision, our own risk.
TelexFree, a scheme more or less operating globally that has U.S. footprints in Massachusetts and Nevada and is under investigation in Brazil, also used Bank of America, according to members. Some TelexFree promoters instructed recruits to walk deposits meant for TelexFree into a Bank of American branch in Massachusetts or TD Bank locations elsewhere. TD Bank, of course, was the bank of Florida Ponzi schemer and racketeer Scott Rothstein. Four years after Rothstein’s $1 billion-plus scam brought great shame to the banking community, it’s still causing ripples.
The PP Blog previously reported that a former Zeeker who also was associated with Profitable Sunrise — an alleged international pyramid scheme that funneled tens of millions of dollars to Europe, China and Panama amid the murkiest of circumstances — also was pushing BLGM.
All of these “programs” are operating or have operated within the MLM sphere, the same sphere that produced the incredibly toxic ASD/AVG Ponzi schemes. All of the “programs” either have or had access to the wire facilities of various nations around the globe while using Ponzi- and pyramid schemes as their business model.
The Piggybackers
Various destructive forces are piggybacking on the scams, including attack bots and spambots that are keying on the names of HYIP enterprises and HYIP story figures to promote other scams or to drive traffic to other highly questionable “opportunities.”
Even after the PP Blog announced the temporary suspension of the publication of new stories last week, it continued to be targeted by resources-draining bots. One wave knocked the Blog offline for about an hour two days ago. During the involuntary outage, legitimate readers and researchers could not access the Blog.
One of the spammers left the signature of an IP associated with the country of Indonesia. A spam bid from the specific IP keyed on a PP Blog story about ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming, now in federal prison for targeting U.S. federal officials and a Secret Service agent in an abuse campaign, harboring fugitives and possessing firearms as a convicted felon. Records in Washington state show that a Leaming-connected enterprise once traded on the name of JPMorgan, a famous banking concern. (“Sovereign citizens” are becoming increasingly infamous for harassing banks.)
Another spammer — one that left an IP signature from Belarus — also targeted a Leaming story thread at the PP Blog.
In recent weeks, the Blog has recorded data that plainly show that botnets, spambots or human spammers are circling antiscam sites and attempting to execute command strings that — if enough volume is applied — can cause databases to malfunction or even cause the sites to go offline.
This creates an atmosphere that affects the publishing of information not only on current scams, but also on emerging scams and scams of the past. The downstream effects are potentially ruinous — and yet it continues.
ASD and AVG were discredited long ago. But scams that use their core business model not only are launching, but in some cases thriving. Serial promoters are racing from one fraud scheme to the next. This sets the stage for schemes to fill up the world’s largest sports stadiums eight or 10 times over with victims. In 2008, ASD could have filled the Rose Bowl to capacity with victims one time. By 2012, Zeek could have filled the Rose Bowl with victims 10 times.
The “defenses” for these various schemes range from the bizarre to the utterly mindless — and they absolutely must be decimated with the full, combined weight of the various world governments.
It is in the interest of the worldwide public to connect the dots of these schemes and to eradicate them through the maximum application of the force of law. Left unchecked, they will erode the very foundations of freedom and permit the criminal underworld of MLM to thrive.
